[pwinnski]

They as a singular gender-neutral pronoun is far, far older than 30 years[0], so while I believe that you were taught that, you were taught incorrectly. So was I!

It is neither a bastardization, nor grammatically incorrect, to use they as a singular gender-neutral pronoun.

0. https://www.academicwritingsuccess.com/the-astonishing-histo...

[Clubber]

Interesting history. According to that article, using "they," as a singular pronoun was improper from 1745 until 2015. It depends on who you ask of course but had I used singular "they," in a paper, I would have lost a letter grade for each occurrence. My Literature teachers didn't mess around.

PS: I enjoyed the use of the old style footnote. We were just getting out of that notation into inline references when I was taught.

[erik_seaberg]

Most of the style guides under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_an... discourage it; one found 82% disapproval from their panel of specialists. Anyone using it needs to expect that kind of judgment.